


the myth of janus

by glundergun (cleardishwashers)



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:37:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/glundergun
Summary: MY MOMMY'S A SKELETON but i decided to add more angst. happy birthday to the amazing @glasvegi!!!
Relationships: Dee Reynolds & Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	the myth of janus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glasvegi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasvegi/gifts).



_ She’s dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s— _

“My mommy’s a skeleton!” Dennis wails, and Dee knows his nails are digging into her arm (he’s always grabbed her like that, like if he didn’t sink his claws in then she would leave him behind) but she can’t feel it. He’s sinking into hysterics next to her, and someone is yelling— but she can only see the skeleton, the dead skeleton lying in the dusty coffin that was  _ supposed _ to be full of money and not her mother’s fucking  _ bones. _ Christ on a bike. She might throw up. Right here, into the grave of her dead mother, and then Barbara would start yelling  _ ( _ “ _ why the hell can’t you hold your liquor, you worthless slut”). _ Maybe the skeleton is going to start shrieking at her right now. God.

Her senses fade. She doesn’t know how she gets home. She fumbles to open the door, and Mac and Dennis and Charlie are behind her but they don’t say a word about how fucking  _ useless _ she’s being right now. She feels drunk, like she’s got no control of her body. Mac is saying something about leaving Dennis here, because  _ “he’s not saying anything, Dee, you gotta fix him, okay?” _ and she doesn’t care.  _ Dump him on the couch. Just leave him there. _ She’s got no intention of taking care of her brother (she did that enough when they were young), but somehow she ends up next to him with her fingers curled in his blanket. He’s practically catatonic, curled into himself like a fetus. She angles her body away from him,  _ all the better to ignore you with _ like they’re kids again and Dennis is telling her that she’s the Big Bad Wolf, and she wonders why the fuck there had to be two of them.

She passes out on the couch wishing that there were more drugs in her system and when she wakes up she feels worse than every post-crack crash combined. Something in her, something that survived from the days of them sharing a womb (despite her best efforts), recognizes the loss of her brother’s body heat. Something is sizzling. She can’t be bothered to look and make sure he hasn’t set fire to the goddamn apartment. She squeezes her eyes shut even tighter and pulls the blanket (when did that migrate from his end of the couch to hers?) even closer, and she falls asleep.

_ “Wake up, Dee, you bitch,” _ someone is saying, and for a second she wonders if Barbara really has come back from the dead, but then the same someone says “ _ I made eggs” _ and she knows that it’s not her mother. She opens her eyes, blurred with the last vestiges of sleep, and glares at the plate of food that her brother has set in front of her (even though it’s the nicest thing he’s done for her in years). If she were Mac or Charlie, she’d ask him if he ate, but she’s not either of them and she owes him nothing.  _ Fuck you, _ she thinks, and she has no idea if she says it aloud or not, but she pulls herself into an upright position and eats the eggs and fights the nausea and wonders what would’ve happened if Barbara had died earlier. Maybe she’d still have a brother instead of the shriveled, demented husk that sits in front of her and throws insults her way and makes her eggs even though he won’t eat them himself.

She should’ve spat on her mother’s grave when she had the chance.


End file.
